In this stunningly produced volume, the artist's mastery and devotion are combined with compelling stories depicting the magical life of Krishna. Excerpts from classics such as the Bhagavat Purana and Gopal Champu accompany 180 paintings, wonderfully illuminated by Swami B.V. Tripurari's poetic and informative narrative.

This deluxe collector's edition exquisitely presents Form of Beauty in a silk-covered clamshell box, with one Sharma's finest miniatures hand tipped on to the case. Each book has been numbered and signed by the artist, and the box holds a separate Sharma art print inside. Printed in six-color on 110 lb. Japanese satin matte art paper, each image is reproduced using a 200 line screen and individually varnished. In addition, four deluxe gate-folds display some of Sharma's greatest pieces in their entirety. Covered in fine Japanese silk, gold stamped, and protected with a six-color French-fold jacket.

The art of B.G. Sharma is renowned for its elegance of composition, delicacy of detail, gem-like colors and light-suffused images. Still, the hallmark of his work is its unmistakable aura of deep devotion. In this stunningly produced volume, the artist's mastery and devotion are combined with compelling stories depicting the magical life of Krishna. Excerpts from classics such as the Bhagavat Purana and Gopal Champu accompany 180 paintings, wonderfully illuminated by Swami B.V. Tripurari's poetic and informative narrative.

The great philosopher, essayist, poet, and novelist masterfully offers his fascinating outline of Aesthetics Theory. Drawing on the art, literature, and social sciences involved, Santayana discusses the nature of beauty, form, and expression.

Richard Eldridge presents a clear and compact survey of philosophical theories of the nature and significance of art. Drawing on materials from classical and contemporary philosophy as well as from literary theory and art criticism, he explores the representational, expressive, and formal dimensions of art, and he argues that works of art present their subject matter in ways that are of enduring cognitive, moral, and social interest. His accessible study will be invaluable to students and to all readers who are interested in the relation between thought and art.

This book introduces the reader to the literary work and to an understanding of its cultural background and its specific features. In doing so, it refers to two main traditions of Western culture: one of aesthetics and the theory of art and the other of literary theory. In our postmodern world, language and artistic creation (and above all literature as the art of language) occupy a special role in understanding the human world and become existential issues. A critical attitude requires knowledge of the relevant past in order to understand what we are today. The author presents key topics, ideas, and representatives of aesthetics, theory, and the interpretation of works of art in an historical perspective, in order to explain the Western tradition with constant attention to the present condition. Aesthetics, Theory and Interpretation of the Literary Work offers an outline of essential concepts and authors of aesthetics and theories of the literary work, presenting basic topics and ideas in their historical context and development, considering their relevance to the contemporary debate, and highlighting the specificity of the experience of the art work in our present world. The best way to approach a work of art is to enjoy it. In order to enjoy a literary work, we have to consider its correct context and its specific artistic qualities. The book is conceived as a general and enjoyable introduction to the experience of the work of art in Western culture. See inside the book.

Reveals the importance of the sacramental imagination as the key to the renewal of Christology and of modern Christian literature.

As described in this fascinating book, Evo Devo is evolutionary development biology, the third revolution in the science, which shows how the endless forms of animals--butterflies and zebras, trilobites and dinosaurs, apes and humans--were made and evolved.

Glenn Parsons and Allen Carlson offer an in-depth philosophical study of the relationship between function and aesthetic value, breaking with the philosophical tradition of seeing the two as separate. They begin by developing and defending, in a general way, the concept of Functional Beauty, exploring how the role of function in aesthetic appreciation has been treated by some notable thinkers in the history of aesthetics. They then consider the relationship to Functional Beauty of certain views in current aesthetic thought, especially what we call 'cognitively rich' approaches to the aesthetic appreciation of both art and nature. Turning to work on the nature of function in the philosophy of science, they argue that this line of enquiry can help solve certain philosophical problems that have been raised for the idea that knowledge of function plays an important role in aesthetic appreciation. Although philosophical discussions of aesthetic appreciation tend to focus largely and sometimes almost exclusively on artworks, the range of aesthetic appreciation is, of course, much larger. Not simply art, but also nature, architecture, and even more mundane, everyday things—cars, tools, clothing, furniture, and sports—are objects of frequent and enthusiastic aesthetic appreciation. Accordingly, in the second half of the book, Glen Parsons and Allen Carlson consider the place and importance of Functional Beauty in the aesthetic appreciation of a broad range of different kinds of things. The final chapters explore Functional Beauty in nature and the natural environment, in architecture and the built environment, in everyday artefacts, events, and activities, and finally in art and the artworld. In each case, Parsons and Carlson argue that Functional Beauty illuminates our aesthetic experiences and helps to address various theoretical issues raised by these different objects of appreciation.

A FINALIST FOR THE PULITZER PRIZE NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW, SMITHSONIAN, AND WALL STREET JOURNAL A major reimagining of how evolutionary forces work, revealing how mating preferences—what Darwin termed "the taste for the beautiful"—create the extraordinary range of ornament in the animal world. In the great halls of science, dogma holds that Darwin's theory of natural selection explains every branch on the tree of life: which species thrive, which wither away to extinction, and what features each evolves. But can adaptation by natural selection really account for everything we see in nature? Yale University ornithologist Richard Prum—reviving Darwin's own views—thinks not. Deep in tropical jungles around the world are birds with a dizzying array of appearances and mating displays: Club-winged Manakins who sing with their wings, Great Argus Pheasants who dazzle prospective mates with a four-foot-wide cone of feathers covered in golden 3D spheres, Red-capped Manakins who moonwalk. In thirty years of fieldwork, Prum has seen numerous display traits that seem disconnected from, if not outright contrary to, selection for individual survival. To explain this, he dusts off Darwin's long-neglected theory of sexual selection in which the act of choosing a mate for purely aesthetic reasons—for the mere pleasure of it—is an independent engine of evolutionary change. Mate choice can drive ornamental traits from the constraints of adaptive evolution, allowing them to grow ever more elaborate. It also sets the stakes for sexual conflict, in which the sexual autonomy of the female evolves in response to male sexual control. Most crucially, this framework provides important insights into the evolution of human sexuality, particularly the ways in which female preferences have changed male bodies, and even maleness itself, through evolutionary time. The Evolution of Beauty presents a unique scientific vision for how nature's splendor contributes to a more complete understanding of evolution and of ourselves.